Up in Aberdeen again this last week so running in the mornings. There's something about a morning run that just sets you up for a good day's work.
Went up Monday night, back Thursday so three days of running. Trying to work completely aerobically at the moment, so I'm sticking to a flat loop from the hotel down one of the main streets and back up the beachfront, or in reverse. Seems to be working so far with my runs getting closer and closer to achieving full compliance to the heart rate cap of 148.
For the three runs this week, I managed
Tuesday - 5.07mi / 41:42 / 8:13 / AHR 143 / MHR 160?? max seen on watch was 150 so I think that was a bit spurious as I adjusted the strap. Ran in my Merrell Trail Gloves
Wednesday - 5.26 mi / 40:47 / 7:45 / A142 / M150 (possible short 1st mile on the Garmin, as the course was the same), run in huaraches
Thursday - 5.12mi / 40:48 / 7:52 / A142 / M150 - best yet, only 30 secs outside the target zone, and that was in the kick back up from the beach to the hotel., run in huaraches
Something had upset my stomach on Tuesday morning as I had severe intestinal discomfort. I blame the airline sandwich I ate on the way up. That just reminds me why I don't eat airline sandwiches anymore - I'm a much better business class passenger.
So, flew back Thursday, and had Friday as a rest day, did a couple of house chores, picked the kids up from school, painted a little of the model aircraft I've been working on with Serena and made myself a dammned good martini.
Saturday, as usual was chores day, ballet lessons, shopping etc in the morning, then in the afternoon I headed out for a barefoot run on the 10K loop that I race on at new year (almost missed the entry this year, sold out in under a week). Ran the loop in the reverse direction this time which was a mistake, as it left the roughest bit of pavement till last, by which time I was getting tired and my feet were beginning to get a little tender. I'm definitely considering racing BF this year, but only for kicks as I'm still way off my shod pace. You can clearly see in the numbers below where I'm starting to tire, and then when I hit the harder terrain for BF running
T - 6.39mi / 53:44 / 8:24 / AHR 144 / MHR 150
1) 8:08 / 140
2) 7:46 / A 144
3) 8:15 / 146
4) 8:38 / A145
5) 8:31 / 145
6) 8:58 / 146
7) 0.39mi / 3:27 / 8:46 / 145
Today, Sunday, we went out as a family in the morning to the pool (it's been in the high 20's celcius here this last week) and spent about an hour and a half or so splashing around and generally making a fool of myself. Great fun resulting in two tired kids and a wife.
Lunch, then I set out on the bike for an intended 45miles or so. Little did I know that a pretty strong wind had sprung up since the morning and that certaintly seemed to have an impact on the character of the ride. I alse made a routing error which threw the Maffetone HR cap way out of the window for about half a mile of a steep rise.
The wierdest thing was the flat parts of the route that were into the wind. The HR was playing silly buggers to put it bluntly. Every time I went out from behind the shelter of a hedge my HR jumped about 5bpm and try as I might I just couldn't stop the HR jumping above 150. So it was basically jumping between about 144-145 and 150-152 for most of the first 20 miles. Apart, that is from the aforementioned hill which saw it jump to 157 briefly. The really strange thing was that this is totally opposite to my normal reponse to wind. Normally, I struggle to get the HR up but the legs really feel it, today it was the opposite, HR up, but really comfortable in the legs.
Not sure if this is all pointing towards the HR capped stuff starting to work its thing with me now being able to work harder at the same HR or to something else.
Then came the turn, tailwind now, rocking!
Then came the next turn for home, nasty crosswind this time, but the HR had settled down somewhat
45.38 mi / 2:35:03 / A 17.6 / M 28.3
AHR 143 / MHR 157
cad 93 / max 119
Overall pretty slow, but in the circumstances I'm not entirely disappointed.
Gonna keep up with this for another coupel of months and see what happens. Off to Algeria later in the week for 7 days, assuming that my visa comes though in time. Will try another MAF test after I get back
No comments:
Post a Comment